


53. perihelion

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [112]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: n. the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this forgetting that Sarah meets with Amelia before she gets Helena out of the trunk. Whoops! Maybe I'll write another version where she knows Helena is her sister during the entirety of the drabble. This is not that version.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life for you,” Helena says peaceably when Sarah pulls her out of the trunk of the car and shoves her towards the direction of Siobhan’s house. Sarah puts her hands over Helena’s eyes as a belated sort of blindfold, even though Helena’s been here before. Helena leans into her hands, touch-starved. Sarah can feel Helena’s eyelashes tickling at the skin of her palms. She can also feel the zip ties on Helena’s wrists jabbing into her stomach. Both sensations feel equally real.

“You can wait a little longer, then, can’t you,” she says as they head towards the basement. Siobhan, standing by the door, raises her eyebrows at Sarah. _Can you handle this?_ Sarah nods. She hopes so.

“I don’t have to wait,” Helena says. “You are already here.”

They head towards the basement; when they reach the stairs, Sarah takes her hands off Helena’s eyes. “Down,” she says.

“This is a nice house,” Helena says as she picks her way slowly down the stairs. She puts one foot on each step, then the second one. One, two. One, two. It’s taking her forever.

Sarah doesn’t answer her. The thought of Helena’s eyes on the washing machine, the pipes, the basket of unfolded laundry – it all makes her sick. But halfway down the stairs Helena stops and looks at Sarah instead, and – she doesn’t know if that’s any better, Helena’s eyes on her like sun lamps. Artificial heat, hot enough to burn her.

“You came for me,” Helena says.

“Don’t get used to it,” Sarah says. “You’re useful. For now.”

Helena tilts her head to the side. “You were going to give me to the doctor,” she says. “And you didn’t.”

“Your point,” Sarah says, folding her arms over her chest in a move she tells herself isn’t defensive.

“You feel it,” Helena says, and goes all the way down the stairs. When she reaches the bottom she twirls in circles, gravity off-balance from her tied hands. Sarah doesn’t move. She keeps her arms folded across her chest. Helena watches her as she spins, spins, spins, a lonely planet orbiting nothing.

Eventually Siobhan meets her at the door. “What took so long,” Sarah mutters, and her foster mother just shakes her head before taking the stairs down and standing in front of Helena. She’s holding a sharp little linoleum knife and another pair of zip ties. Helena stops spinning, blinks dizzily; she doesn’t look at Siobhan at all, just at the knife. Her tongue darts out and licks along the top row of her teeth.

“Hello, Helena,” Siobhan says softly. “I’m Siobhan. Sarah’s foster mother.”

“ _Foster_ mother,” Helena says. Her head tilts back and forth, wobbling on the axis of her neck. “Fake mother.”

“Sure,” Siobhan says, “doesn’t matter to me very much what you think.” Helena makes a pursed little face at this, sways seasick on her feet. She looks up from the knife, past Siobhan, right at Sarah. In her eyes is a desperate call for approval – like she wants Sarah to say _trust Siobhan_ , or _don’t_. Sarah doesn’t say anything. She holds Helena’s gaze. She tells herself it means nothing.

“I’m going to cut your zip ties and refasten them,” Siobhan says, soldiering on even though it’s clear to everyone in the room that she matters as much to Helena as Helena does to her. “If you make a single move, I will gut you with this, are we clear?”

“Like crystals,” Helena murmurs. Her eyes are still on Sarah’s. Sarah takes another step down the stairs; she can’t help herself. It feels – it feels.

Siobhan’s knife at the delicate bruised skin of Helena’s wrists. Helena watching Sarah, eyes begging her to make this all alright. Sarah. Sarah doesn’t know where to place herself in this metaphor but she’s here. She’s right here, and Helena is letting her arms be pulled around the pillar without a single sound. The zip ties sing a zipper-sound as Siobhan pulls them tight and Helena lets her legs collapse, hits the ground with an _oof_. And she’s sitting. And she’s small. It’s easy to forget, that she’s small.

“There we are,” Siobhan says, sounding cross. She walks past Sarah, taps her on the shoulder. “Need you in the kitchen, love, I’ve got someone who wants to share something with you.”

“Yeah, be there in a sec,” Sarah murmurs, and Siobhan lets out a little sigh and heads back up the stairs.

The washed-out light in the laundry room lights Helena like a spotlight, like a picture of a saint graffitied on the side of a wall. She looks so sad. Sarah wishes she didn’t feel the bone-deep urge to cut her free, and let her go.

“I can,” Helena says.

“Can what.”

“Wait.” Helena sounds sad, and resigned. Her head hits the pillar behind her with a _thunk_ and she watches Sarah. “I can wait a long time, Sarah. You’ll feel it. You will. I know.”

Sarah should say _don’t count on it_ , or _not likely_ , or _you’re sick in the head, that’s all this is_. Instead, on some instinct she doesn’t understand, she says: “Yeah.” The word comes out soft. Yeah, I know. And she does. Down here in the basement, it feels inevitable: that sooner or later, Sarah is going to feel it too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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